1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improvements in preparing whole raw potatoes for slicing during commercial production of potato chips.
2. Description of the Background Art
Commercial potato chips typically are produced from whole raw potatoes that are sliced utilizing high speed rotary slicers such as the Urschel.TM. model CC. Before introducing potatoes into such automatic slicers, it is desirable to separate from the potatoes any foreign material, such as rocks, woods, metal and the like, as well as unacceptable potatoes. Because potatoes vary considerably in size, it is also desirable to select out excessively large potatoes that might jam the slicer. In the past, removal of foreign materials and over-size potatoes generally involved a considerable amount of manual labor.
Most processes for the production of potato chips include peeling of the whole potatoes prior to slicing, which advantageously is performed by mechanical peeler machinery in order to increase efficiency and reduce labor costs. In order to avoid waste, it is desirable to remove as much peel from the potato as possible, while retaining the maximum amount of potato flesh. For a given potato size and peel rate, mechanical peelers can usually be manually adjusted to optimally remove a maximum amount of peel with as little potato flesh as possible. However, on-line variations in potato feed rate, potato size and the like often results in insufficient peel removal or excessive waste of the potato flesh.
There remains a need in the art for improved systems for preparing whole potatoes during processes for producing potato chips.